2019

Has Brussels pushed Brexit talks to the brink?
or the Arrogant Madness of EU fundamentalists
with Tim Sebastian in Conflict Zone by Deutches Welle (DW)

With just weeks to go before the UK’s planned exit from the EU, the Irish border issue remains unsolved and a disastrous no-deal departure is still on the table. But has inflexibility in Brussels pushed Brexit talks to a dangerous endgame? Philippe Lamberts, an MEP and member of the European Parliament's Brexit Steering Group, tells DW's Conflict Zonethat the British have responsibility for the Good Friday Agreement and the EU "will decide for what we are responsible.”

Conflict Zone is Deutsche Welle's top political interview. Every week, our hosts Tim Sebastian and Michel Friedman are face-to-face with global decision-makers, seeking straight answers to straight questions, putting the spotlight on controversial issues and calling the powerful to account.

Neo Nazism at the heart of German institutions, that is at the heart of the EU leading power

2016

A Tunisian criminal -well known to French police for previous armed attacks- strikes again murdering a hundred persons while crowds were celebrating Bastille Day in Nice

The lone terrorist used a hired lorry -full of arms and explosives- to kill at least 84 people in a terrorist attack during Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, it emerged on Friday.

Many children were among the death toll in the Riviera city following a "cowardly and barbaric" atrocity (while no security forces were protecting the people
celebrating the National Day of the French Republic! otherwise the lorry would
had found the access to the zonee forbiden).

As hundreds remained in hospital, including 18 in intensive care, anti-terrorist judges opened an investigation into ‘mass murder’.

Boris Johnson spells out a 5 points plan for a much brighter future for the UK & the rest of Europe by breaking free from the antidemocratic yoke of the EU bureaucracy

... In the old days, the Lefties used to dismiss the EU as a bankers’ ramp. Tony Benn thought it was unacceptably anti-democratic. Jeremy Corbyn used to vote against it in every division. Why has it suddenly become so fashionable among our nose-ringed friends? I tried to think which of the EU’s signature policies they were so keen on. Surely not the agricultural subsidies that make up most of the budget, and that have done so much to retard development in the Third World. They can’t – for heaven’s sake – support the peak tariffs that discriminate against value added goods from Sub-Saharan Africa. Nor can they possibly enjoy the sheer opacity of the system – the fact that there are 10,000 officials who are paid more than the Prime Minister, and whose names and functions we don’t know.

They can’t really be defending the waste, the fraud – or the endless expensive caravan of crémant-swilling members of the European Parliament between Brussels and Luxembourg and Strasbourg. Are they really demonstrating in favour of the torrent of red tape that has done so much to hold back growth in the EU? It seems an odd sort of campaign theme: what do we want? More Brussels law-making! When do we want it? Now!

Naturally, Lefties might want laws to protect the workforce – but they would surely want those laws to be made by politicians that the people could remove at elections. No: the more I thought about it, the odder it seemed. It was incredible that these young and idealistic people should be making a rumpus about the euro – the key policy of the modern EU – when that project has so gravely intensified suffering in many southern EU countries, and deprived a generation of young people of employment.

...These fears are wildly overdone. The reality is that the stock market has not plunged, as some said it would – far from it. The FTSE is higher than when the vote took place. There has been no emergency budget, and nor will there be. But the crowds of young people are experiencing the last psychological tremors of Project Fear – perhaps the most thoroughgoing government attempt to manipulate public opinion since the run-up to the Iraq War.

When Geldof tells them that the older generation has “stolen your future” by voting to Leave the EU, I am afraid there are too many who still believe it. It is time for this nonsense to end. It was wrong of the Government to offer the public a binary choice on the EU without being willing – in the event that people voted Leave – to explain how this can be made to work in the interests of the UK and Europe. We cannot wait until mid-September, and a new PM. We need a clear statement, now, of some basic truths:

1) There is no risk whatever to the status of the EU nationals now resident and welcome in the UK, and indeed immigration will continue – but in a way that is controlled, thereby neutralising the extremists.

2) It is overwhelmingly in the economic interests of the other EU countries to do a free-trade deal, with zero tariffs and quotas, while we extricate ourselves from the EU law-making system.

3) We can do free-trade deals with economies round the world, many of which are already applying.

4) We can supply leadership in Europe on security and other matters, but at an intergovernmental level.

5) The future is very bright indeed. That’s what Geldof should be chanting.

The UK votes to break free from the antidemocratic yoke of the EU and saves again Europe from tyranny

Prime Minister David Cameron is to step down by October
Mr Cameron made the announcement in a statement outside Downing Street after the final result was announced.
He said he would attempt to "steady the ship" over the coming weeks and months but that "fresh leadership" was needed.
The PM had urged the country to vote Remain, warning of economic and security consequences of an exit, but the UK voted to Leave by 52% to 48%.
England and Wales voted strongly for Brexit, while London, Scotland and Northern Ireland backed staying in.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage hailed it as the UK's "independence day" but the Remain camp called it a "catastrophe".
The pound fell to its lowest level against the dollar since 1985 as the markets reacted to the results.
Watch Prime Minister David Cameron dignified resignation

Julian Assange's arbitrary detention must end at once, UN panel finds.
Sweden must drop immediately the fake case against the founder of Wikileaks.

WikiLeaks chief, who has been holed up since 2012 in the Ecuadorian embassy, has won UN backing.
A United Nations panel has decided that Julian Assange’s three-and-a-half years in the Ecuadorian embassy amount to “arbitrary detention”, leading his lawyers to call for the Swedish extradition request to be dropped immediately.
A Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman confirmed that the UN panel, due to publish its findings on Friday, had concluded that Assange was “arbitrarily detained”.
The WikiLeaks founder sought asylum from Ecuador in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over rape and sexual assault allegations, which he denies.
The panel’s findings were disclosed to the Swedish and British governments on 22 January, and will be published on Friday morning. Their judgment is not legally binding but can be used to apply pressure on states in human rights cases.

Also read:Find in Wikileaks how Henry Kissinger, when he was US Secretary of State, ruined the author of a 'Pure Theory of Democracy' and thus the chance of Spain having a true representative Democracy ... [+]

2015

The EU for Deutchland über Alles drive by the totalitarian idiocy of oligarchies of states parties

'Devastated and humiliated': Greek deal poisons Europe as backlash mounts against 'neo-colonial servitude'
'It is now perfectly clear to a lot of people that the only way out of neo-colonial servitude is to break free of monetary union,' said one Syriza rebel ... more in The Telegraph

Despite that most countries claimed to be democratic, they have not democracy but oligarchy of state parties [which is the caused of institutional corruption]; that is why Egypt, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Cambodia, Russia, China, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, all East european and hispanic countries, indeed, most countries of the world are such a burden for the fundamental rights of their people. Germany leader of the European Union has not Democracy, but the same oligarchic regime that brought Hitler to power. The EU is not promoting democracy at all. Most people mistake individual liberties for the political -individual and collective- freedom they lack. Do read this book if you want to know what to do to bring Democracy to your own country:
'A Pure Theory of Democracy'
by Antonio García-Trevijano
translated by Miguel Rodríguez de Peñaranda
published by University Press of America

"This is not a democracy," Antonio García-Trevijano denounces in the first pages of this book. To confront the great lie that Europe does have democratic regimes, a lie rooted in people's confounding of the liberties they enjoy with the political freedom that they lack, the author builds a realistic theory of democracy to end the false idea that corruption, state crime, and public immorality are democracy's (undesirable) products and not the natural and inevitable fruits of oligarchic regimes. Thanks to a superb review of the events that mark the history of democracy, the author reveals the obstacles that, from the 17th century English revolution, the United States' War of Independence, and the French Revolution, opposed political freedom, deviating old Europe's democratic possibilities toward the current parties' state. There exist important theories of the state and of constitution, but none that can be called a theory of democracy. Antonio García-Trevijano's original theory, a modern synthesis of Rousseau's pure democracy and Montesquieu's political freedom, responds to European need for a theory of democracy as a real alternative to the corrupted parties' regime that was engendered by Western pragmatism during the Cold War.

About the authors:Antonio García-Trevijano was born in Granada, Spain, in 1927. He has been a prominent figure of Spanish politics since the late sixties and is arguably one of the most important intellectual figures of the 20th century. His work, 'A Pure Theory of the Republic', will be published this year by University Press of America.

Miguel Rodríguez de Peñaranda was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1974. He is a writer and a translator. He is the author of several books on the fields of philosophy, poetry, religion, and political theory and is the translator of 'A Pure Theory of Democracy' and the forthcoming 'A Pure Theory of the Republic'.

2014

The fraud of Democracy in the EU

Voters can't name their MEPs as poll highlights disengagement with EU
Only 11% say they would be confident of naming one of their MEPs, against 52% who could name their MP
Only one in 10 UK voters say they can name a member of the European parliament in their region, and even fewer have ever contacted one, according to a new poll that highlights widespread public disengagement with the EU.
The Opinium/Observer survey, conducted a fortnight before European elections later this month, shows that people are five times more likely to be able to name their local MP than any of their MEPs.
Just 11% say they would be confident of naming one of their MEPs, against 52% who say they could name their MP and 31% who could name one of their local or county councillors. Just 8% say they have made contact with an MEP, while 79% say they have never considered doing so.
While there is clearly a low level of engagement with MEPs, the poll shows that more people (43%) think the European parliament is important in the way Britain is governed than those who think it is unimportant (37%).
With turnout in the European elections likely to be low – in 2009 it was just 34% – the findings will alarm members of the EU establishment who fear that voter apathy and lack of involvement with the European project is allowing anti-EU forces such as Nigel Farage's Ukip to gain a bigger foothold in the European parliament.
... more in The Guardian - BBC - The Independent - The Telegraph - El Mundo - Voz Populi - Libertad Digital - El Confidencial

There is a remedy to improve representative Democracy: 1) All MP must be elected by absolute majority, the constituent electors deciding in a second ballot who of the two front runners will be their representative in Parliament. 2) Separation (not division) of powers, between Legislative and Executive, to achieve this goal the Prime Minister to be in charge of State's administration must be elected by all UK electors in a separate election, by absolute majority, that is with second ballot between the two front runners until one obtains 50+% of the national vote. Coalitions are anti-democratic and will bring institutional corruption in the long run. For more information please read “A Pure Theory of Democracy” by Antonio Garcia-Trevijano
Thanks.
Meizoso

Corruption in the European Union

The European Commission describes corruption across 28 member bloc as 'breathtaking' in the first report of its kind.
A European Union study found “breathtaking” levels of corruption across the 28-country bloc, costing the region at least 120bn euros ($162bn) a year. The study included a survey of public perception of corruption, which found that more than three-quarters of Europeans agree that corruption is widespread in their home countries and four out of ten consider it an obstacle.
Nearly two-thirds of the businesses surveyed said using political connections or paying under the table were necessary in order to succeed or to access certain public services. Greece, Croatia and Romania see especially high levels of bribery, according to the report, while Denmark, Sweden and Finland remain the region’s best performers.

Europe's New Mafias

In the midst of a changing criminal underworld, AlJazeera investigates the spread of mafia-style activity from East to West.

No one paid the two men much attention as they approached the bank. It was around three in the afternoon in a small French town and customers had been coming and going to the cash machine all day. If anyone spared the two a thought, they would probably have assumed they were - just like anyone else - about to withdraw some money.
But then, as the men huddled together around the ATM - incidentally making it difficult for passers-by to see what they were doing - one of them opened his jacket and pulled out a rectangular steel panel. He swiftly pressed it into place over the cash machine’s keyboard (that it fitted perfectly was no accident), and then they walked away...
... more in PEOPLE
& POWER at AlJazeera

2013

The lack of representative Democracy in the EU and most of its member states leads to serious violations of fundamental rights of persons
State mafias that collaborate with dictatorships: the case of crimes against refugees from the republic of Kazakhstan
The murky extradition attempt from Spain of dissident Mr. Alexandr Pavlov
The secuestration of Mrs Alma Shalabayeva, wife of opposition leader Mr Mukhtar Ablyazov, and their young daughter from Italy... and so on

It was around midnight when some 30 armed men dressed in black burst into the villa in a well-to-do Rome suburb where Alma Shalabayeva and her young daughter had been living for the past eight months. Twenty more armed men were swarming outside.

After ransacking and searching the house, one of the gunmen, an Italian man with a gold chain, screamed “Russian bitch” at her and, minutes later, “I am the mafia!” Ms Shalabayeva’s brother-in law, who had been visiting with his wife and daughter, emerged from a room, his face bloodied by a beating.

Terrified, Ms Shalabayeva quickly understood that they were looking for her husband, Mukhtar Ablyazov, a Kazakhstan opposition leader and former energy minister who fled his homeland in 2009 fearing for his life, later gaining political asylum in the UK. He is currently being pursued by Kazakhstan in London’s High Court for the alleged misappropiation of at least $6bn from BTA. Bank, of which he was former chairman.

“At that moment I had only one feeling – they had come to kill us?.?.?.?They were just going to kill us all without a trial and investigation and nobody would ever know,” recounts Ms Shalabayeva, describing events in May this year that have sent shockwaves through the Italian government, leaving it struggling to explain its actions and raised the concerns of the UN rapporteur for human rights.

She was hastily deported to Kazakhstan. Rome’s readiness to hand over the wife of a political refugee has raised questions about commercial links between Italian elite and resource-rich Kazakhstan, frequently criticised for its human rights record.
... read more in The Open Dialog Foundation

How the Vatican built a secret property empire using Mussolini's millions.
Papacy used offshore tax havens to create £500m international portfolio, featuring real estate in UK, France and Switzerland

Few passing London tourists would ever guess that the premises of Bulgari, the upmarket jewellers in New Bond Street, had anything to do with the pope. Nor indeed the nearby headquarters of the wealthy investment bank Altium Capital, on the corner of St James's Square and Pall Mall.
But these office blocks in one of London's most expensive districts are part of a surprising secret commercial property empire owned by the Vatican.
Behind a disguised offshore company structure, the church's international portfolio has been built up over the years, using cash originally handed over by Mussolini in return for papal recognition of the Italian fascist regime in 1929.
Since then the international value of Mussolini's nest-egg has mounted until it now exceeds £500m. In 2006, at the height of the recent property bubble, the Vatican spent £15m of those funds to buy 30 St James's Square. Other UK properties are at 168 New Bond Street and in the city of Coventry. It also owns blocks of flats in Paris and Switzerland.
The surprising aspect for some will be the lengths to which the Vatican has gone to preserve secrecy about the Mussolini millions. The St James's Square office block was bought by a company called British Grolux Investments Ltd, which also holds the other UK properties. Published registers at Companies House do not disclose the company's true ownership, nor make any mention of the Vatican.
... more in The Guardian - PublicoWatch also:

Nazi flags fly as Merkel tells Greeks the worst is over... if the sacrifice themselves another 10 years

Tens of thousands gathered at the barricades of a massive police operation to protect the German Chancellor as she met with Greek leaders who are searching for a new package of budget cuts to secure bail-out funds largely underwritten by the German taxpayer.
The centre-Right Mrs Merkel had arrived in Athens with the state plane flying the flags of both Greece and Germany.
The gesture set a tone of understanding and humility from the German camp but failed to make a dent in the wave of anger directed at the woman blamed for pushing Greece ever deeper into depression.
The message sent to Mrs Merkel from the streets was unremittingly bleak.
Banners screamed: "Angela, Save the world, Kill Yourself" and "Out with the Fourth Reich".

Germany told to 'come clean’ over Greece
German Chancellor Angela Merkel must “come clean at long last” and admit that Greece will need help for another seven or eight years, the German opposition leader said over the weekend.

“The Greeks must stand by their commitment, but we must give them time. We cannot tighten the screws any futher,” said Peer Steinbruck, the Social Democrat candidate for chancellor. He said the political and economic fall-out from Greek ejection from the euro would be devastating and must be avoided.
The plea came amid reports that Berlin is so worried that a Greek crisis would spin out of control that it is ready to back the next €31bn payment to Athens under its EU-IMF Troika rescue, despite failure to comply with the terms. Wirtschaftswoche, a German news magazine, said Greece’s parliament merely needs to vote on a list of detailed reforms.
It cited warnings from a top EU official that “domino-effect” dangers are too great to allow the ejection of Greece from EMU. Authorities across the world – including the Bank of England – fear a surge of capital flight from Portugal, Ireland, Spain, and Italy if the sanctity of monetary union is violated.
Diplomats say concerns go beyond financial damage. Both EU and US officials are worried that the fragile security system of the Western Mediterannean could start to unravel if Greece is alienated and withdraws from Nato under populist leaders in the future... [+]

The new push for a European Union federation, complete with its own head of state and army, is the "final phase" of the destruction of democracy and the nation state, the president of the Czech Republic has warned.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Václav Klaus warns that "two-faced" politicians, including the Conservatives, have opened the door to an EU superstate by giving up on democracy, in a flight from accountability and responsibility to their voters.
"We need to think about how to restore our statehood and our sovereignty. That is impossible in a federation. The EU should move in an opposite direction," he said.
Last week, Germany, France and nine other of Europe's largest countries called for an end to national vetoes over defence policy as Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, urged the creation of a directly elected EU president "who personally appoints the members of his European government".
Mr Westerwelle, in a reference to British opposition, called for nation states to be stripped of vetoes on defence to "prevent one single member state from being able to obstruct initiatives" which "could eventually involve a European army". ... [+]Read also:Violence Erupts as over 200.000 Greeks Strike to Protest Austerity ... [+]

Well, that was shortlived. It seems the Finnish threats on the eurozone are now being played done. More details as we get them. Some decisive news coming from Europe. In a newspaper interview, Finland's finance minister Jutta Urpilainen said the country would rather leave the eurozone than continue bailing out struggling countries.
According to AFP, she said: "Finland is committed to being a member of the eurozone, and we think that the euro is useful for Finland"
Finland will not hang itself to the euro at any cost and we are prepared for all scenarios.

The country still has a prized AAA credit rating and fears any shared responsibility could damage that status... [+] Read also:Euro break-up: Let Germany lead the northern core and France the rest: The respected economist and Telegraph columnist summarises the argument for an orderly break-up of the eurozone if a struggling member was forced to leave that won him the Wolfson Economics prize...[+]

Finland warns of euro exit: Finland would consider leaving the eurozone rather than paying the debts of other countries in the currency bloc, Finnish Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen has said... [+]

Spanish bailout: the bitter fruits of 4 decades of corruption and impunity
...supported by the anti-democratic drive of the European Union

...Unlike in Greece and Ireland, the prospect of a bail-out in Spain has not led to a rise in feeling against Germany, whose Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been accused of trying to impose excessively harsh austerity measures.
The Spanish government has not dithered in belt-tightening programmes, and among many of the demonstrators in La Linea, there is an acceptance that Spain is the author of its own misfortunes.
Mr Fernandez, the lawyer, conceded Spain's 8,700 municipalities were part of the problem: the country, he said, should halve the number of local government offices to save money. Massive over-reliance on the construction sector was also weakness, he added.
"It started off as a small problem with excess spending in the late 1970s, but now the issue has rolled and rolled," he said. "It is a small stone that has become a giant rock."
Certainly the Spanish problems, which started with overspending in regional governments, have become very big mountains indeed. On Thursday, credit agency Fitch slashed Spain's rating by three notches, from A to BBB.
Worse still, Fitch said Spain would likely remain slumped in recession this year and next, rather than stage a mild recovery in 2013, denting hopes of reducing the 25 per cent national unemployment rate.

...Now the international consensus has collapsed, elite opinion is confused and Germany has become the arbiter of the European financial crisis. The US administration's economic policy has produced poor results and the American president wants to blame his problems on you. Your neighbors, the IMF, and the Obama administration are trying to persuade you to extend Germany's credit to paper over the indebtedness of the rest of Europe. Yet common sense makes clear that Germany's resources are finite, while German voters fail to understand why they should put their future in jeopardy to support countries plagued by corruption and inefficiency.

Spain’s Premier Steps Up, With Caveats for Europe: ... Adding to European uncertainties about him, Mr. Rajoy tried to persuade Spaniards on Sunday that the decision to accept the $125 billion bailout was neither a concession to European pressure nor a recognition of the gravity of Spain’s crisis, and that it would not carry any of the onerous conditions of austerity that have roiled Greece.
“Nobody pressured me; I was the one who pressured to get credit,” Mr. Rajoy said at a news conference in Madrid. The agreement, he added, improved “the credibility of the European project, the future of the euro, the solidity of our financial system and the possibility that credit will flow again.” ... [+]

The EU's 'beneficial crisis' has spun out of control
'Europe' expected to be united through emergencies, but this one will tear it apart.

So battle-weary have our media become in covering the slow-motion collapse of the euro that it took them quite a while to wake up to the gravity of the crisis building up over the latest episode – the impending bankruptcy of Spain. On Thursday –while even the EU’s economic affairs commissioner was warning of the “disintegration” of the eurozone, and a former Spanish prime minister spoke of “a total emergency, the worst crisis we have ever lived through” – one internet summary of the day’s top stories (headed by “Jeremy Hunt”) ranked Spain only 20th on the list.
Even those commentators who have tried to put this latest crisis into perspective often revealed how hazily informed many of them are about the history of the EU, and what a central role the creation of the euro has played in it. The BBC’s Robert Peston, for instance, was not the only one to “explain” how the idea of a single currency was concocted by Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand after the fall of Communism in 1989. One cannot, however, grasp the significance of the euro without realising that its history goes much further back than that.

As long ago as 1957, Jean Monnet – who was the real organising genius behind the gradual building of “Europe” into a single, unified state – suggested that it was only through monetary and economic union that the “political union which is the goal” could be achieved. “There are no premature ideas,” he wrote, “only opportunities for which we must learn to wait.” ... [+]

Governing parties backing EU-mandated austerity in Greece are on course for a major drubbing as hard-hit voters, venting their fury in elections, defected in droves, according to exit polls.
In a major upset that will not be welcomed by the crisis-plagued country's eurozone partners, the two forces that had agreed to enact unpopular belt-tightening in return for rescue funds appeared headed for a beating, with none being able to form a government.
After nearly 40 years of dominating the Greek political scene, the centre-right New Democracy and socialist Pasok saw support drop dramatically in favour of parties that had virulently opposed the tough austerity dictated by international creditors.
The latest figures showed New Democracy leading with between 19 – 20.5% of the vote, followed by the radical leftist party, Syriza, with as much as 17% and socialist party Pasok with between 13 – 14 %. And for the first time since the collapse of military rule, ultra-nationalists were also set to enter parliament with polls showing the neo-Nazi Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) capturing as much as 8%. ... [+]

European Union alienates us all - as foretold 40 years ago

With chilling candour, a paper from a senior government official laid out the difficulties that Britain would face in the proposed Common Market.
All across Europe, from riots in Greece to those protest votes for Marine Le Pen and George Galloway, we see signs of how alienated people now feel from the “political class” which rules over our lives, out of touch with the rest of us, without meaningful opposition, no longer responsive to any democratic control. I am reminded of a document I discovered in the National Archives at Kew in January 2002, when sifting through papers released under the 30-year rule relating to Britain’s negotiations to join the Common Market. It was a confidential 1971 memorandum, clearly written by a senior Foreign Office official, headed “Sovereignty and the Community”.
With chilling candour, this paper (from FCO folder 30/1048) predicted that it would take 30 years for the British people to wake up to the real nature of the European project that Edward Heath was about to take them into, by which time it would be too late for them to leave. Its author made clear that the Community was headed for economic, monetary and fiscal union, with a common foreign and defence policy, which would constitute the greatest surrender of Britain’s national sovereignty in history. Since “Community law” would take precedence over our own, ever more power would pass to this new bureaucratic system centred in Brussels – and, as the role of Parliament diminished, this would lead to a “popular feeling of alienation from government”.
...[+]

Ukraine's former PM 'on hunger strike'

Yulia Tymoshenko accuses guards of kicking her as she was taken to hospital by force, says her lawyer.
Tymoshenko, who has a severe spinal condition and needs hospital treatment, was taken last week to a clinic in the eastern city of Kharkiv where her jail is located, but was returned to prison a day later after refusing treatment.
Her lawyer, Serhiy Vlasenko, said on Tuesday that prison officials kicked her in the stomach while taking her to the hospital by force.
Prison authorities declined to comment.
The west has condemned Tymoshenko's seven-year sentence for abuse of office as politically motivated.
...German President Joachim Gauck has turned down a visit to Ukraine amid growing concern at the health of jailed former Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said she was "deeply preoccupied" after reports that Ms Tymoshenko was assaulted by guards.
The Ukrainian opposition leader alleges that three men punched her in the stomach on her way to hospital.
Russia's foreign ministry has appealed to Kiev to "show a human approach".
A spokesman in Moscow urged the Ukrainian authorities to "fully safeguard" her legal rights.
...The daughter of Ukraine's jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Friday that her mother's condition has deteriorated badly since alleged beatings by prison guards.

The best hope for saving the euro is for the Pope to pray for divine intervention, according to an email written in the office of Herman Van Rompuy, the man charged with preserving the European Union's single currency.
The message was an April Fool's day joke that was intended for internal consumption only but was leaked yesterday, as are most genuine documents on the euro's survival.
New talks were needed, the "communique" said, and should include Pope Benedict XVI, as Sovereign of the Vatican City State, which uses the euro.
"The presence of His Holiness the Pope affords an opportunity to pray for divine intervention to save the euro. This is now seen as the most credible strategy," concluded the spoof press release, crafted by one of Mr Van Rompuy's aides.
The press office of the Council of EU, whose official letterhead was used for the joke statement, is not said to be amused after receiving calls asking about the "April 1 summit".
"I glad someone thinks this is a laughing matter, but it's no joke for us," said one official.

Euroland will pay for this monetary madness:
The flood of cheap money from the European Central Bank is storing up grave trouble for the future.
When something looks dangerous, it generally is. And few things look quite so high-wire right now as the European Central Bank’s efforts to hold the euro together by flooding the banking system with free money.
This week, the ECB injected a further 529.5 billion euros via “long-term refinancing operations”, or LTROs, bringing the tally to more than 1 trillion euros.
When Mario Draghi, the new ECB president, embarked on the programme shortly before Christmas, it was hailed as a masterstroke which had saved the eurozone from financial and economic calamity. Even the Jeremiahs of Germany’s Bundesbank, proud keepers of the sacred flame of monetary conservatism, were stunned into grudging acquiescence by the evident seriousness of the crisis. But now the doubts are beginning to set in, and with good reason.
The measures adopted are so extreme that it is no longer possible to know where they might lead, or what their eventual consequences might be. There is no precedent or road map for this kind of thing. All we do know is that they fail to provide any kind of lasting solution to the single currency’s underlying difficulties, which are still largely unrecognised and unaddressed. If Draghi’s intention was to buy time, it’s not being well used.
It might be argued, of course, that a sticking-plaster solution is better than no solution.

The EU authoritarian nightmare is driving entire populations to disaster:
Officials from the EU and the International Monetary Fund made two grave errors when they swooped into Greece in mid-2010 and dictated the now hated "Memorandum".

The regime of drastic cuts has tipped the economy into a violent downward spiral. They thought that private industry would muddle through as the state went through the austerity mincer. What the EU-IMF "Troika" did not fully understand is how many firms were really part of the state in disguise.
"The Greek government outsources everything," said one official with close knowledge of the events.
Faced with the guillotine, the state first slashed procurement contracts and then stopped paying its bills altogether. The government is now €7bn (£5.8bn) in arrears to private companies, including €3bn in unpaid VAT refunds for exporters. It is why business has borne the brunt of the fiscal squeeze, suffering 450,000 job losses, and why Greece's unemployment has soared to 21pc.
At the same time the banking system seized up. More than €60bn of deposits were withdrawn. By November, no Greek bank could issue a letter of credit accepted anywhere in the world, with calamitous implications for trade. "Greece became a leper, and is now stuck in Catch-22," said one official.
Hellenic Petroleum was unable to import basic fuel. The reason why Greece's reliance on oil imports from Iran jumped from 15pc to 70pc in a two-week period in November was because Tehran agreed to take on the credit risk.

Greece sinks to its knees: The recent bail-out, which imposes strict new austerity measures on the Greeks, will deepen a crisis that has already driven up the suicide rate by 40 per cent. David Blair reports from Athens on a nation that eyes the future without hope...

Greece's coalition parties face a noon deadline to tell the EU whether they accept the mad terms of a "new bailout" deal as the unelected government keeps threaten the Greek people with Hell as they want to break free from undemocratic EU .

The FT has a story this morning suggesting as many as half of the capital-boosting proposals put forward by 30 European banks may be rejected as not sufficiently credible. Remember these banks were forced to come up with plans to increase their capital cushions after the European Banking Authority in December found that together they needed to raise €115bn to meet their regulatory targets.
The EBA board are due to discussed submitted plans at a meeting next week. Some experts have a pointed finger at Commerzbank as one bank likely to find filling its capital shortfall a big ask. Since then the German bank has generated €3bn of capital toward its €5.3bn stress test shortfall and local regulators have played down concerns.
Spanish bank Santander was found to have the largest shortfall - of €15bn - but has insisted it has found ways of filling the gap. Only Italy's Unicredit opted for a rights issue to raise capital - and look how well that went.

The Greek parents too poor to care for their children

Greece's financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all - their children.
One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils.
"I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her," it read. "Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother."
In the last two months Father Antonios, a young Orthodox priest who runs a youth centre for the city's poor, has found four children on his doorstep - including a baby just days old.
Another charity was approached by a couple whose twin babies were in hospital being treated for malnutrition, because the mother herself was malnourished and unable to breastfeed.
Cases like this are shocking a country where family ties are strong, and failure to look after children is socially unacceptable - and it's not happening in a country ravaged by war or famine, but in their own capital city.
One of the children cared for by Father Antonios is Natasha, a bright two-year-old brought to his centre by her mother a few weeks ago.
The woman said she was unemployed and homeless and needed help - but before staff could offer her support she had vanished, leaving her daughter behind.
...Its chief psychologist Stefanos Alevizos, says that when a parent puts a child into care, the child feels its entire foundations have been shaken.
"They experience the separation as an act of violence because they cannot understand the reasons for it," he says.
But The Smile of a Child's Sofia Kouhi says the biggest tragedy, in her eyes, is that those parents who ask for their kids to be taken into care may be the ones who love their children the most.
"It is very sad to see the pain in their heart that they will leave their children, but they know it is for the best, at least for this period," she says.
...more in BBC - Libertad DigitalRead also:Europa se queda corta si solo castiga a Hungría sin entrar en su propia pérdida de calidad democrática

Fair Trials International is a unique human rights charity. We campaign for fundamental rights for people facing the ordeal of criminal charges in a country other than their own. In addition to providing legal assistance and advocacy to individuals in need, we fight the underlying causes of injustice in cross-border cases through our policy interventions, research and training.

Misuse of the European Arrest Warrant

The Guardian, Thursday 16 December 2010
Julian Assange may ultimately succeed in his bail application, but the threat of extradition to Sweden will still hang over him (The Julian Assange case: a mockery of extradition?, 14 December). The public interest in Assange's case is understandable, but his case illustrates a wider, less publicised problem. Last year alone, Europe's fast-track extradition system was used to extradite nearly 700 people from the UK. Our work at Fair Trials International leaves us in no doubt that this system, designed to deliver justice, is in fact causing many serious cases of injustice.
A central concern in the Assange case is that Sweden seems not even to have laid charges. The European arrest warrant should, by law, be used only to prosecute or to enforce a sentence. Serious though the allegations may be, there is no basis to extradite Mr Assange, unless for the purposes of conducting a criminal prosecution. We have seen many cases of overseas prosecutors reaching for the quick-fire, tick-box EAW, rather than using other legitimate means of investigating alleged crimes. Michael Turner and Andrew Symeou are just two of those we have helped, and who experienced horrendous periods in detention after being surrendered, before even being questioned by police.
In such cases as these, less drastic tools should be used. Sweden should ask the UK to assist with its investigations, starting by questioning Assange. The EAW, used properly, is a key weapon in the fight against serious cross-border crime. It should not, however, be the measure of first resort.
Catherine Heard
Head of policy, Fair Trials InternationalRead also:The European arrest warrant is being used to have thousands of people flown out to face charges that wouldn't stick in the UKExtradition agreement under review as Theresa May launches inquiryEuropean arrest warrant in spotlightExtradition treaty review will take a year:
The review, conducted by a panel of experts selected by the Home Office, will examine whether judges should be given powers to bar extradition and deal with some cases in British courts. Existing legislation allows the US and European Union countries to have British citizens arrested and sent for trial abroad without presenting the level of evidence that would be needed for a prosecution in the UK.
The panel will examine whether the Extradition Act and European Arrest Warrant are being used to unfairly pursue Britons. It follows the case of Gary McKinnon, a Scot who faces decades in a US jail for computer hacking crimes allegedly committed at his north London home. There has also been alarm at the use of European warrants to send people to countries with legal systems less robust than the UK's, and where they can face years locked up on remand.
Last night, the former home secretary David Blunkett, who signed the Extradition Act and has admitted he may have "given too much away" to the Americans, said that sensible discussions with Britain's extradition partners could resolve "any irritants quite speedily".
But he said Ms May's announcement of the scope of the review appeared "to kick these issues into the long grass" because the panel will not report until the end of next summer.
Shami Chakrabarti, of the civil rights group Liberty, also raised concerns about the time the review will take, saying: "A number of hard cases could be more urgently addressed by activating a 'forum' provision that has sat dormant on the statute book for four years."
By activating these provisions now, "judges would have the discretion to protect people who should most obviously be dealt with at home from being shunted off to Europe, the US or anywhere else", she added.

A true Europe versus authoritarian & corrupt EU

I want to live in a society where talent is recognised regardless of borders, ethnicity or religion – now who will lead us there?
In The Journey to Reims, one of Rossini's oddest and most amusing operas, a motley cast of characters from every country in Europe, en route to the French town of Reims for a coronation, get stuck at an inn, for want of horses to resume their journey, and have to share lodgings there. I find this libretto an excellent metaphor avant la lettre for the EU's present predicament. European countries have no alternative to sticking together in many essential social, cultural and economic respects. Yet they seem incapable of making any headway towards goals that are more ambitious but ultimately no less necessary. They lack significant joint projects and shared democratic values and convictions. Basically, they're short of horses.
A look at the EU's top officeholders shows that member states are not prepared to entrust the common undertaking to strong leaders, opting instead for low-profile moderates who can create – or get us to resign ourselves to – consensus. And it is becoming an established axiom that the people of Europe don't want to form a more forceful and prominent union.
For many Spaniards of my generation, it is hard not to see this attitude as a convenient failure and as a source of frustration. Those of us who were young during Franco's dictatorship were subsequently carried away with a perhaps naive enthusiasm about Europe, summed up in a dictum attributed to the philosopher Ortega y Gasset: "Spain is the problem, Europe the solution." But this solution seems to have fallen pretty far short of our greatest expectations. We now understand that Europe, the European Union, is doubtless a solution, but not any old Europe and any old union: the solution is a Europe on terms that now seem seriously compromised, if not cast off for good.
I still believe a worthwhile Europe is one that represents and defends its citizens, not its turf. One that protects political rights (and duties, of course) and legal safeguards, rather than privileges and those hollow traditions used to conceal them from outsiders. A Europe that maintains the integrity of existing democratic, constitutional states against the threat of divisive ethnic demands, which are invariably retrograde and xenophobic. A Europe of freedom and solidarity, not a continent closed to those knocking at its gates to escape political persecution or economic necessity. An open-minded, co-operative, helpful and compassionate Europe, not one jealously guarding its benefits. A Europe of rational hospitality.
This EU is in need of militant Europhiles who are capable of holding out against shortsighted national politicians. Nationalistic leaders and groups are on the rise in every European country: we've seen it in the Czech Republic and other eastern countries, but also in England, Ireland, even France. These nationalists espouse tough protectionism against the outside world and extreme neoliberalism at home, with an out-and-out hooligan mindset and procrustean values fixed on keeping out all those dreaded Others. In other words, Europeans who are only uncompromising about whatever benefits their narrow (and very Christian) interests. Their brand of fundamentalism defines European roots selectively, privileging the most conservative and exclusive view of a tradition whose richness lies precisely in the controversies of its contradictions.
But there is another danger, that of the frivolity of the good multicultural conscience that opposes exclusive Christianity – not for the sake of democratic secularism – but to champion other religious dogmas that also claim to be above the civil laws, even above the western version of human rights. A desirable Europe is one in which religious and philosophical views are everyone's right and no one's duty, much less an obligation of society as a whole. A radical, and consequently secular (which doesn't mean anti-religious), political space in which civil laws prevail over any fideist, ethnic or cultural considerations, and in which there is a clear-cut distinction between what some may call a sin and what all of us must judge to be a crime.
A Europe whose academia allows for the professional mobility of students and professors, but whose universities are not in the service of business interests and rapid returns on investment. A Europe of talent without borders, not unbounded pay cheques and profits.
Of course we need horses to pull us, but also charioteers who know where we wish to go. I believe we can still make it in time.
[Translated from Spanish by Eric Rosencrantz.]
...more in The Guardian